A fourth defendant in the NOAH home-remediation scandal that shook Mayor Ray Nagin's administration as the city lurched toward post-Katrina recovery appears to have reached a plea deal with the federal government. Federal prosecutors filed a bill of information Friday charging contractor Richard Hall with conspiracy and theft from a program receiving federal funds. The bill replaces a 12-count grand jury indictment filed in March -- a switch that generally indicates a plea deal has been reached.

Ted Jackson, Times-Picayune archiveThis property at the corner of Danneel and Washington streets, photographed in 2009, is one of those at the heart of the investigation into Stacey Jackson and New Orleans Affordable Homeownership.

Hall's attorney, Eddie Jordan Jr., declined to confirm any deal pending a federal court hearing scheduled for Tuesday. "That information will be made public at the time of the proceeding," said Jordan, a former U.S. attorney and Orleans Parish district attorney.

Hall has been the lone holdout of the five people charged in the alleged scheme. Three others have agreed to plead guilty, while a fourth is working out a deal with prosecutors to participate in a pretrial diversion program.

Court documents, including the plea agreements, show that the federal investigation hovers around Stacey Jackson, executive director of New Orleans Affordable Homeownership at the time the scandal broke in 2008.

Read the court documents

Jackson is described as "City Official A" in court documents that accuse her of taking kickbacks from favored program contractors. Contractors Earl Myers and Trellis Smith, both of whom pleaded guilty, have implicated Jackson. Jackson, however, has not been charged.

Hall's company, Hall Enterprises, worked exclusively for the now defunct, quasi-city agency as one of its best-paid contractors. NOAH paid Hall Enterprises more than $360,000 for remediation work from October 2005 to July 2008.

Hall didn't perform much of the work, and received double or triple payment for some of the work he performed, bagging nearly $117,000 in unearned federal funds, according to the bill of information.

Under NOAH, the federally funded house-remediation program became a central piece of Nagin's blight strategy, until news reports in 2008 showed that no work had been done at many of the homes that contractors were paid to clean up.

A three-year investigation culminated with the five indictments in January. All but Hall's case have been heading toward a resolution.

In April, contractor Earl Myers pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of federal funds. Two companies owned by Myers were paid more than $500,000 by NOAH, according to prosecutors.

Twice in 2005, Jackson gave Myers a check from NOAH and asked him to cash it and give her money, Myers acknowledged in April, according to the factual basis behind his plea. Jackson also allegedly contracted with Myers to work on properties she owned, paying part of it from federal program funds. And several times from 2006 to summer 2008, Jackson overpaid Myers, then received kickbacks under the scheme, he admitted.

Myers is scheduled for sentencing Thursday.

Trellis Smith, owner of Parish-Dubuclet Services, another NOAH contractor, pleaded guilty in May to a count of conspiracy to commit theft from a federal program. Smith, whose company was paid more than $360,000 from NOAH, conceded that federal prosecutors would have proven that he received several overpayments from NOAH and kicked back money to Jackson.

Jamon Dial, a roofer who worked as a subcontractor to Parish-Dubuclet, pleaded guilty to theft on July 12. Dial admitted he was paid nearly $20,000 to remediate five homes, but never did the work. Dial, of Atlanta, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 11.

His wife, Shantrice Dial, was the special projects coordinator for NOAH, working under Jackson. Accused of theft of government funds and structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements, she is trying to resolve her case through a pretrial diversion program.